


What's in a Name? (Besides Everything)

by Revenant



Series: Stiles Stilinski 100 [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Polish Stiles Stilinski, Stiles Stilinski Speaks Polish, Stilinski Family Feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-04
Updated: 2015-07-04
Packaged: 2018-04-07 16:58:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4270947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Revenant/pseuds/Revenant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Okay," John agrees, resting a careful hand on his son's back. He smiles, opens his mouth to repeat the name and then frowns. "What?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	What's in a Name? (Besides Everything)

**Author's Note:**

> **prompt 76: Who.**

She's waiting on the stairs when he comes home from a twelve hour shift at the station, one hand resting on the curve of her belly and the other loosely clutching the banister. "It's time, John," she tells him, calmly.

"Time?" he asks, rubbing his brow trying to focus. "Time!" he cries, when the information sinks in. "Okay. Okay, everything's okay. Are you okay? I'm getting the go-bag. Don't worry, honey, we're ready for this."

"John," she calls. Then a little louder, "John!" He stops when her hand rests on his upper arm. "Breathe, sweetheart. Everything is fine."

The baby's early. "Not that early. Just a few weeks," the doctor tells him when he points this out. "I don't foresee any problems. Your wife is young and she's strong. It's all right, Mr. Stilinski."

He's heard horror stories about labor, how it's not a few hours of agony followed by extreme relief and joy, how sometimes it drags on and on, seemingly interminable. He's as prepared as he can be, is more worried about what Claudia might need, how he can entertain her, keep her distracted. "He's impatient," she says, smiling, when he's finally able to join her, garbed in a cap and gown. "I think he's going to be a handful."

The baby is born in a little over four hours with no complications. Apparently it's an easy birth, unusual for a first baby. "Easy," Claudia scoffs. She's damp with sweat and she looks exhausted but she's glowing. John thinks she's beautiful but doesn't say it out loud knowing that his wife will scoff and tell him that he's deluded. He's not deluded. She's the most beautiful thing he's ever seen in his life. Always has been.

"Are you okay? Is there anything I can do?" he frets as they wait for the nurse to bring their son to them.

Claudia closes her eyes and pats the back of his hand where it's resting on her shoulder. "It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be," she admits. "I was mentally preparing for a lot worse. I think I love painkillers. Best invention humanity has ever developed."

When a nurse presents their son, swaddled in a soft blanket, Claudia holds him carefully against her chest as John adjusts the pillow behind her so she can more comfortably sit up. "He's so beautiful," Claudia whispers. "John," she says. "John. This is our baby."

"So," he hedges, settling on the edge of her bed so he can wrap an arm around her, rest his head beside hers so they can both stare at their son. "You're saying you're not completely against the idea of having another kid?"

She snorts, and he thinks she has a thing or two to say about it, how 'easy and uncomplicated' didn't mean 'pain free' or 'fun times'. "Lets just see how this one goes, okay?" she answers wryly.

"Yeah." He sighs. "I'm good with that."

They stare at their kid, their tiny, brand new baby boy who has only a faint suggestion of brown hair, who is all soft, round edges and sleepy contentment. "Gościsław Mikołaj Stilinski," Claudia whispers, smoothing her thumb across their son's forehead. "After my father."

"Okay," John agrees, resting a careful hand on his son's back. He smiles, opens his mouth to repeat the name and then frowns. "What?"

_________________________________________________

They lie in their bed, curled into one another with their son between them. John has been going crazy by himself at the house, hated falling asleep in the bed alone. He likes it like this, his wife and their kid, together with him on their bed in their home.

This is it, he thinks. This is my family, right here. It's his whole world curled together with him on the sheets. "Gaa-sh-ee-swaff," he sounds out slowly.

Claudia smiles. "Gościsław," she says, the name rolling off her tongue with ease. He hears a sharp sound near the beginning, a hidden 'ch'.

"Gosh-cheese-wuv," he tries, and Claudia starts snickering. "What? Was I closer?"

"I always thought you called my dad 'sir' out of respect, but I'm starting to suspect otherwise."

"Stop it," he says when she keeps laughing unhelpfully. "I need to get this right. This is my kid here. How is he supposed to take me seriously when I'm trying to ground him and I keep mangling his first name."

She makes a show of wiping the amusement from her face, and then nods. "Okay," she says, face sober. "Try again. Gościsław."

"I can do this, you know." 

She leans forward, presses her lips to his forehead and smiles fondly. "I know. You'll get it. Keep practicing."

_________________________________________________

Gościsław loves his name. He especially loves that the only people who can pronounce it are the people he cares about, who care about him. It feels like it's the password to a secret club. If you can't say it, if you don't practice and try to get it right, then you aren't part of the club, you have no place in it.

The bullies in the playground make up nicknames for him but they roll off his back because he knows they have to call him Spazz and Freakazoid because they have no idea how to say his name, have no clue where to even begin morphing it into an insult. Consequently, Gościsław pretends he never hears them. 

Sometimes he shouts, "Is someone trying to talk to me? I'm not sure because no one's called for me so …" It makes them shout louder, but he doesn't care, feels a strange sense of satisfaction about it.

He likes that he can shape words differently because his mom is teaching him Polish. How when she says his name there is a whole new inflection to it that makes the name sound natural and easy. His dad can pronounce it perfectly but it never comes out as smooth, something almost stumbling in the cadence of it. Gościsław loves that, how the people he cares about all learn his name but it still sounds different for every person. 

He takes special pleasure in the first day of school when his teachers attempt roll call and stumble over it and cringe and stutter. 

Gościsław loves all of it.

_________________________________________________

It's not the same after his mom dies.

Every time someone says his name he can't help but hear the variations, the differences in the inflection, all of them close, so very close, but never perfect. Never the way she said it. "You're saying it wrong!" Gościsław insists. "Stop saying my name."

No one he knows speaks Polish, not even his dad. No one can shape the name quite right. "Gościsław," he whispers to himself at night, says it the way she taught him to, the way she always said it. "Gościsław." He thinks that, from this point on, no one is going to get it quite right anymore. That it will always be close, but never close enough. Never perfect.

That's not good enough. 

He hates his name.

The next day he comes downstairs and informs his father gravely that he would prefer to be called "Stiles", that he intends to refuse to answer to anything else, that it's this or anarchy.

"Stiles, huh?" his dad repeats. There's something sad in the expression on his dad's face, but Stiles isn't sure if that's because of this change or because of everything else. "Okay, kiddo. I'll do my best, but if I slip up, you just go right ahead and remind me."

The first time his dad gets angry enough to yell he stands with his hands on his hips, his face red as he says, "I've had about enough of this, Stiles. Go to your room, right now."

Stiles grins like an idiot, like a loon. He's made a mess and he's in trouble and his dad is pissed but Stiles can't stop smiling and there are tears coming to his eyes and he feels _grateful_. He hadn't realized he'd been bracing himself until the moment passed and name never came. 

His dad sighs, a great whooshing exhalation, and rubs a hand over his face. "What is it?" he asks, reluctantly.

"You called me Stiles."

His dad frowns like he's unsure, confused. Then the expression resolves into exasperated fondness and he says, "Aw hell, kid," and he drags Stiles into a hug and nearly crushes him to death. Stiles almost laughs he so happy.

"Thanks, dad," he says and means every word of it.

"I'm still mad at you," his dad points out, and Stiles holds both of his hands up and nods emphatically. "I'm thinking up a punishment right now, it'll be a doozy."

His dad never messes up, even when he's angry, or sad, or has had too much whiskey trying to chase the memories away. Stiles feels so grateful that sometimes it feels like he's breaking in two. For a while, every time his dad says his name Stiles has to circle back and give the man a hug, can't think of any other way to express his gratitude, his relief.

_________________________________________________

On his first day at Beacon Hills High, his gym teacher 'Call me Coach' Finstock glances down at the attendance sheet and says, "Oh hell no. What is that, I can't even…"

Stiles raises his hand and says, "Present. You can just call me 'Stiles'," like he's been saying all day, in every single one of his classes. He smiles at the unabashed relief that flashes over his teacher's face.

**Author's Note:**

> Please leave feedback!
> 
> Follow me on [tumblr](http://dragons-are-a-girls-bestfriend.tumblr.com/).


End file.
